New plugin [pimatic-check-alive]

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This plugin can control many variables in one place without a long list of built-in rules. If a variable was not updated in the specified time interval the plugin sets the “state” attribute to “true”. It allows you to control activity of remote devices that must send data periodically. You may just control changing of the “state” attribute in your rule and execute necessary actions. The plugin can also log alerts to a log file.

Page: https://github.com/ptvoinfo/pimatic-check-alive
Git: https://github.com/ptvoinfo/pimatic-check-alive.git

This is my first plugin. Comments are welcome!

@aggsoft Nice, Thank you very much for your contribution.
Maybe you can also give a more detailed use case to demonstrate the advantage of using your plugin over rule conditions

For example, in my application, I have about 10 various ESP-based sensors connected to Pimatic through MQTT. I didn’t find an easy way to:

1. Send an notification (SMS in my case) only once if one one of these sensors disappear (hung, broken, etc.)
2. Maintain list of these sensors easily.
3. Easily specify identical control parameters for a group of variables.

@aggsoft How about the following?

``
WHEN temperature of dummy-temp was not updated for 30 seconds

Yes, but for 10 sensors I should repeat this rule (and actions) 10 times. Then if I want to change an action or an interval then I should go through all these rules. If you are configuring a new system and adjust parameters periodically then this is a long process .

@aggsoft said in New plugin [pimatic-check-alive]:

Yes, but for 10 sensors I should repeat this rule (and actions) 10 times.

Ok, thanks for the clarification

Thank you for your comments/questions!

I think extending the rule syntax with something like:

WHEN [temperature of dummy-temp AND <> and <> and<>] was not updated for 30 seconds

Would also solve this use case. And maybe in a cleaner way

Yes, this is another option, but in this case someone should modify a Pimatic core. In my case a new plugin was a more faster option.